Source Guide

How to verify a statement

This is a reading map, not a claim that every source has been exhaustively reviewed or that all developments are covered. The chapter footnotes are the detailed source record: they identify the particular instrument, provision, publication or court order used for the statement.

When checking a legal proposition, record the instrument’s status, relevant version, jurisdiction, regulated role, application date and any later amendment. Publication, entry into force, general application and a transitional deadline can be different dates. A press release about an agreement is not a substitute for the adopted text.

Law and regulation

Topic	Start with	Detailed handbook source record
European Union	Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 and Regulation (EU) 2026/1744, followed by relevant Commission implementation material	EU AI Act
US federal policy and agency requirements	Official executive orders, OMB memoranda, statutes and agency publications; distinguish internal federal requirements from private-sector duties	US federal
US states and cities	Current statutory text and official regulator publications, rather than only the bill announcement or an earlier effective-date article	US states and cities
Other jurisdictions	Official legislative and ministry sources; label pending bills and voluntary initiatives separately	International governance
Healthcare, finance and employment	The responsible sector regulator’s statute, rule or dated guidance, including its stated scope and status	Sector-specific rules
Training data and copyright	The actual court order, procedural posture and affected claims; do not generalize one fact-specific ruling into a universal permission	Copyright and IP
Privacy and automated decisions	Applicable data-protection law and official regulator guidance, with attention to territorial scope and exceptions	Privacy, data and security

The September edition corrects the old handbook’s use of secondary commentary where an official source was available. It also removes earlier forecasts that no longer describe the legal position. A source link is not a substitute for an organization-specific applicability review.

Standards and risk frameworks

• NIST AI RMF 1.0: official framework and supporting resources. See the federal and technical safety chapters for the distinction between voluntary risk guidance and binding obligations.
• NIST AI 600-1: Artificial Intelligence Risk Management Framework: Generative Artificial Intelligence Profile, published July 2024. Do not confuse it with NIST’s separate March 2025 adversarial-machine-learning publication.
• ISO/IEC: the standards chapter links the official catalog records for 42001, 23894, 22989, 42005 and 42006, and explains what can and cannot be established from public scope descriptions.
• OECD: Recommendation of the Council on Artificial Intelligence. Use the live official instrument to check its revision history and wording.

The handbook’s maturity-planning tables are illustrative planning aids, not an official NIST scoring system or a validated assessment instrument. A claimed alignment should identify the specific source provisions and actual evidence, not just a framework name.

Technical evidence and practical examples

The technical safety, frontier-models and privacy chapters link technical and official materials beside the relevant discussion. Evaluate the study’s task, data, system version, test conditions and limitations before applying a result elsewhere.

A vendor’s description of its own policy is evidence of that published policy, not independent proof of the model’s performance. A benchmark result is not a finding that every deployment context is acceptable.

Review boundaries

This edition is dated September 7, 2026. Sources were checked for the propositions discussed, but the handbook is not a continuously updated legal database, licensed standards collection, complete docket review or exhaustive global survey. Translations and summaries should be checked against the authoritative language where it controls.

For the changes made in this edition, see edition history. For an error or a later development, use the corrections process with the affected passage and source.